Comments on: Good books for beginning php

Question: Good books for beginning php

quarsan — Tue, 05 Apr 2005 14:26:11 -0800

i've got to learn php for my work. can anyone recommend a good, not too expensive or obscure, book i can order to help me make a start? I'm in Belgium and there's only one bookshop that sells english language books so I can't go and browse to see what I would like.

By: safetyfork

safetyfork — Tue, 05 Apr 2005 14:34:01 -0800

PHP and MySQL Web Development, Second Edition
by Luke Welling, Laura Thomson

It's not cheap new, but it's reasonable used.

By: TNLNYC

TNLNYC — Tue, 05 Apr 2005 14:36:34 -0800

I don't know how much access to the Internet you have but, generally, I found that the sites like the PHP.net site and just googling for info have been providing almost as much info as what you could get in a book.

By: quarsan

quarsan — Tue, 05 Apr 2005 15:08:31 -0800

safetyfork, thanks for that recommendation, it looks great.
TNLNYC, there is a lot of good stuff online, but i find having a book to read and thunb through much better than staring at a screen, but i have bookmarked the php online manual

By: the_W

the_W — Tue, 05 Apr 2005 15:43:07 -0800

I second safetyfork's recommendation.

By: krisjohn

krisjohn — Tue, 05 Apr 2005 15:48:56 -0800

I used two references to learn php. An Orielly Pocket Reference, and an 1800+ page PDF. The combination was brilliant.

By: socratic

socratic — Tue, 05 Apr 2005 15:52:40 -0800

You asked for a book, and I'll third it, though for my own personal learning style, it was almost useless (no reflection on the book... i just do better digging into code examples and searching newsgroups and bulletin boards for people with similar problems). Everybody has their own way, and if you learn from books, that's a good one.

By: togdon

togdon — Tue, 05 Apr 2005 16:59:52 -0800

Advanced PHP Programming by George Schlossnagle would be a good followup to the previously mentioned title. I learned PHP before there were any books, reasonable or otherwise, and picked that one up recently on the recommendation of someone who'd learned PHP the same way.

We both got a lot out of it and tend to work on completely different types of projects. If you're at all comfortable programming you might even be able to get by with a few online tutorials and then diving straight into that...

By: krisjohn

krisjohn — Tue, 05 Apr 2005 17:17:19 -0800

This is the pocket reference. The PDF file I think was from php.net and doesn't appear to be available anymore. I've put it up on my site in a .7z archive.

There's no point in a big huge book if you can't find anything in it. Grossly oversized references have to be electronic. Paper references need to be as small and simple as possible.

Note that both of these references are raw function references. X does Y. Not "So you're wanting to create Z..." type of books. Your learning style may vary.

By: joshgray

joshgray — Tue, 05 Apr 2005 18:18:01 -0800

Advanced PHP Programming and PHP and MySQL Web Development, Second Edition (already mentioned) are awesome books.

If you're new stick with O'Rielly's "Learning.." books like Learning PHP 5

PHP.net is a great reference as well. I hit that all the time when i am programming

By: quarsan

quarsan — Tue, 05 Apr 2005 21:27:54 -0800

thanks everyone. i like to play with code as i go, but i like to take time away from the screen and read, then put into practice what i've read. a pocket reference sounds essential and php.net is an incredible resource.

By: SpecialK

SpecialK — Tue, 05 Apr 2005 23:25:03 -0800

I think the "PHP 4 Bible" was the best book I found when I was learning, and the one I learned from. I would stay away from O'Reilly books unless you're the kind of person who can sit down and read a whole book cover to cover... I, personally, can not.

By: yoga

yoga — Wed, 06 Apr 2005 05:59:47 -0800

The Tizag Tutorial site has been very helpful to me when used along with reference handbooks.